Neuroscience and conflict resolution

April 2012

April 29, 2012

The battles of the materialists, the reductionists, against those who believe that we are more than our brains go on and on. And on. Just this week, I see in the Guardian "The brain… it makes you think. Doesn't it?"

If you want to read a well-written book about the non-materialist position, Brain Wars is excellent. In addition to drawing on his professional experience, Dr. Beauregard has researched his topic well. He persuasively makes the point that our lives are not determined by our brains and its chemicals. This message gives one more hope than provided by the determinism of the reductionists—and reminds us of our responsibility to make good decisions. Read the book.

Note: Mentioned in both Myers's and Beauregard's pieces is the story of Kimberly Clark and Maria. Before you decide what you think happened, I recommend you read "Who Will Watch the Watchers?" (Michael Prescott).

The lens of culture is very subtle and tricky. To navigate and communicate effectively in another culture takes experience, knowledge, time, and wisdom. Unfortunately, today the topic of cross-cultural communication has reached the level of pop psychology. If you listen, the purveyors of this simplistic version of culture awareness are still stuck in seeing the world through their own very Western lens.

To avoid being repetitive, I will link to my earlier posts on culture below. To understand how careful one needs to be when trying to understand other cultures, read them or better yet get a copy of the latest edition of the Samovar text and read it through. Then follow your reading up with any book by Paul Pedersen, such as this one.

And then you are ready to begin learning by going to other cultures and listening, watching, respecting.

I said that learning the art of cross-cultural communication takes time. What is time? Today I am posting a captivating story about how much cultures can vary, in this instance on the concept of numbers, counting—and time. Here's "Study Finds Twist to the Story of the Number Line," a news release from UCSD.

Tape measures. Rulers. Graphs. The gas gauge in your car, and the icon on your favorite digital device showing battery power. The number line and its cousins – notations that map numbers onto space and often represent magnitude – are everywhere. Most adults in industrialized societies are so fluent at using the concept, we hardly think about it. We don’t stop to wonder: Is it “natural”? Is it cultural?

Now, challenging a mainstream scholarly position that the number-line concept is innate, a study suggests it is learned.

The study, published in PLoS ONE April 25, is based on experiments with an indigenous group in Papua New Guinea. It was led by Rafael Núñez, director of the Embodied Cognition Lab and associate professor of cognitive science in the UC San Diego Division of Social Sciences.

“Influential scholars have advanced the thesis that many of the building blocks of mathematics are ‘hard-wired’ in the human mind through millions of years of evolution. And a number of different sources of evidence do suggest that humans naturally associate numbers with space,” said Núñez, coauthor of “Where Mathematics Comes From“ and co-director of the newly established Fields Cognitive Science Network at the Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences.

“Our study shows, for the first time, that the number-line concept is not a ‘universal intuition’ but a particular cultural tool that requires training and education to master,” Núñez said. “Also, we document that precise number concepts can exist independently of linear or other metric-driven spatial representations.”

Núñez and the research team, which includes UC San Diego cognitive science doctoral alumnus Kensy Cooperrider, now at Case Western Reserve University, and Jürg Wassmann, an anthropologist at the University of Heidelberg who has studied the indigenous group for 25 years, traveled to a remote area of the Finisterre Range of Papua New Guinea to conduct the study.

The upper Yupno valley, like much of Papua New Guinea, has no roads. The research team flew in on a four-seat plane and hiked in the rest of the way, armed with solar-powered equipment, since the valley has no electricity.

The indigenous Yupno in this area number some 5,000, spread over many small villages. They are subsistence farmers. Most have little formal schooling, if any at all. While there is no native writing system, there is a native counting system, with precise number concepts and specific words for numbers greater than 20. But there doesn’t seem to be any evidence of measurement of any sort, Núñez said, “not with numbers, or feet or elbows.”

Neither Hard-Wired nor “Out There”

Núñez and colleagues asked Yupno adults of the village of Gua to complete a task that has been used widely by

“Right now, the field and even pop­ular cul­ture writes about the brain as if spe­cific psy­cho­log­ical events are local­ized to spe­cific brain tis­sues,” Bar­rett said. “So, for example, when you have a memory it hap­pens in the hip­pocampus and when you have fear it hap­pens in the amygdala.

Barrett’s find­ings sug­gested the exact opposite.

Her Inter­dis­ci­pli­nary Affec­tive Sci­ence Lab­o­ra­tory com­pleted a meta-​​analysis of thou­sands of data points from hun­dreds of studies between the years 1990 and 2005. The find­ings sug­gest that brain regions once thought to be specif­i­cally and con­sis­tently asso­ci­ated with par­tic­ular emo­tions are in fact active across a variety of emo­tional — and even non-​​emotional — states.

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“These data sug­gest that the brain is pop­u­lated by a set of basic oper­a­tions, or ingre­di­ents, that are not spe­cific to emo­tions or thoughts or mem­o­ries,” Bar­rett said.

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The amyg­dala, for example, which Bar­rett said is one of the most con­nected regions in the brain, doesn’t fire only when a person expe­ri­ences fear, but when­ever the brain doesn’t have enough infor­ma­tion about what to do next. Some­times, but not always, we sub­jec­tively expe­ri­ence this uncer­tainty as fear, Bar­rett said.

April 22, 2012

Click to listen to a talk by Dr. Carol Tavris given at the 2008 conference of the Association for Psychological Science. She begins by talking about being an editor in the early days of Psychology Today and reads from a "jargon file." I laughed out loud!

Tavris describes why Dr. Elliot Aronson, in contrast, is such a good science writer. She laments that many other science writers seem to be governed by this mantra: "If we can speak differently, we can show that we know stuff they [non-scientists] don't know." Aronson is not of that school; she tells us he is instead a good teller of stories that are funny, touching, sorrowful.

Tavris continues by explaining that not everyone can be a great writer but everyone can be a better one. The starting point Aronson told himself long ago is don't write in a way you wouldn't want to read.

Where is it written that a journal article can't start the same way as a popular one?

What is the problem?

Why is the problem important?

Why am I personally passionate about it?

Why should you care?

Instead most journal articles begin with a throat clearing and then a description of the problem going back to Aristotle.

In this talk about the importance of clear language in science writing, Tavris praises Aronson for bringing his field, social psychology, to people so they can use it in their everyday lives: in work, as citizens, in interpersonal relationships. Both Tavris and Aronson agree that every reader deserves good writing. Aronson has shown us how to write well by combining the data with the story.

April 18, 2012

Once in a while, I run into someone who follows this blog but does not know that I also blog at idealawg. At that other blog, I often post about the brain or about mindfulness/meditation. Those posts are typically more general and, unlike most posts here, not specifically related to conflict resolution. Click for idealawg posts about the brain and posts about mindfulness/meditation.

April 15, 2012

By now, I believe most conflict professionals are aware of the malleability of memory, the problematic role that storytelling therefore can play in a dispute, and how to "correct" for the shifting narrative. Here's a concise reminder of the shiftiness of memory.

Consider our collective memories of 9/11. For the last 10 years, researchers led by William Hirst of the New School and Elizabeth Phelps of New York University have been tracking the steady decay of what people recall about that tragic event. They first quizzed people shortly after the attacks, then after one year, and found that 37% of the details had already changed. Although the most recent data have yet to be published, they're expected to reveal that the vast majority of remembered "facts" are now make-believe.

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In recent years, neuroscientists have documented how these mistakes happen. It turns out that the act of summoning the past to the surface actually changes the memory itself. Although we've long imagined our memories as a stable form of information, a data file writ into the circuits of the brain, that persistence is an illusion. In reality, our recollections are always being altered, the details of the past warped by our present feelings and knowledge. The more you remember an event, the less reliable that memory becomes.

April 14, 2012

A new article in the New York Times about a school founded by an alternative theater troupe has resulted in some interesting responses; for example, on Twitter: click here or here or here or here or here. The school incorporates practices they claim are brain-based. I guess only time and some rigorous research will tell if the approach is effective in helping kids learn and achieve.

[Y]oung children at the Blue School learn about what has been called “the amygdala hijack” — what happens to their brains when they flip out. Teachers try to get children into a “toward state,” in which they are open to new ideas. Periods of reflection are built into the day for students and teachers alike, because reflection helps executive function — the ability to process information in an orderly way, focus on tasks and exhibit self-control. Last year, the curriculum guide was amended to include the term “meta-cognition”: the ability to think about thinking.

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For all the attention brain science is receiving in schools, experts say it is too soon to know whether its application will lead to improved academic outcomes. And some researchers say that while they embrace new ideas — especially around self-control — they personally prefer a more traditional approach to pedagogy.

“The older approach has led to some very good outcomes,” said Sam Wang, an associate professor of molecular biology and neuroscience at Princeton University and co-author of “Welcome to Your Child’s Brain,” a child development primer for parents.

With brain science achieving much more time in the public spotlight, including in the arena of conflict resolution, some of the techniques and theories seeping out of research labs will be be bogus and some will be bona fide. Just a few years from now, we'll know more about what truly helps kids—and adults. In the meanwhile, as I have often warned, be careful, be conservative, be cautious.

In any popular application of neuroscience, you will find people who are careful, conservative, and cautious about what they say, and you will also find the people skilled at marketing. The latter group

Partly because the "E" in my CARVE Disputes Model stands for "emergence," I was drawn to this article about an improvisational dance professor cum mediator. Plus, the article once again reminded me of how constrained we are in the way we conceptualize and practice mediation. I continue to hope that this century will see us leaping out of that narrowness and incorporating helpful tools from many arts and sciences, perhaps even including body movement. After reading about Susan Sgorbati, maybe you will join me in that hope?

What do flocks of birds, schools of fish, neurons in the brain and dancers improvising movement have in common? According to Bennington College professor Susan Sgorbati, they are all functioning according to similar principles of self-organization, creating sense and order out of what might have been chaos.

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"The improvisation work was always very important to me, because it had a connection to real life and to relationships," she said. "When I started talking with the scientists and realized this organic structuring was everywhere in nature, I started seeing everything differently."

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As an experienced mediator (she developed Bennington's conflict resolution curriculum and supervises a mediation clinic for Bennington County in Vermont), Sgorbati was equipped to recognize the parallels between the way dancers move together and the way people in conflict move over time toward a mutually agreeable solution. That realization has led her to question whether emergent improvisation principles, coupled with the essential ingredient of empathy, could be somehow employed to help humans work out their differences, in the political, social and environmental arenas.

April 12, 2012

The Initiative on Mindfulness in Law and Dispute Resolution, University of Florida Levin College of LawApril 1, 2012

Forthcoming Events, News, and Resources Related to Mindfulness in Law and Dispute Resolution(Note: This is not a comprehensive (or systematically prepared list of events related to mindfulness in law and dispute resolution. Other resources for information on events dealing with mindfulness in law and dispute resolution are listed at the end of this document.)

Sponsored by Pepperdine University School of Law, Institute for Dispute Resolution. Led by Leonard Riskin, Professor, University of Florida College of Law and Visiting Professor, Northwestern University School of Law, and Rachel Wohl, Director, Maryland Supreme Court Mediation and Conflict Resolution Office . See http://law.pepperdine.edu/straus/training-and-conferences/ or contact Lori Rushford at lori.rushford@pepperdine.edu. [Note: Full-time law school professors may be able to attend for a nominal fee.]

June 27-29, 2012, Chicago (Downtown). Summer Institute on Negotiation: Critical Skills for Effective Negotiating.Northwestern University, School of Continuing Studies. Led by Leonard Riskin, Chesterfield Smith Professor, University of Florida Levin College of Law and Visiting Professor, Northwestern University School of Law, and Daniel Shapiro, Harvard Law School & Harvard Medical School; and Director, Harvard International Negotiation Program. This course, offered for the seventh time, integrates instruction and practice in mindfulness with the teachings of Roger Fisher and Daniel Shapiro’s award-winning Beyond Reason: Using Emotions as You Negotiate (Viking 2005). For more information, see http://www.scs.northwestern.edu/summernu/programs/negotiation.cfm

NEW: Spring 2013. Second Annual Mindful Lawyer Conference, University of California-Berkeley School of Law, Berkeley, California. Sponsored by the Berkeley Initiative for Mindfulness in Law, http://www.law.berkeley.edu/mindfulness.htm

Recent and Forthcoming PublicationsRichard J. Davidson with Sharon Begley, The Emotional Life of Your Brain: How Its Unique Patterns Affect the Way You Think, Feel, and Live--and How You Can Change Them (Penguin Group, 2012).(Congressman) Tim Ryan, A Mindful Nation: How a Simple Practice Can Help Us Reduce Stress, Improve Performance, and Recapture the American Spirit (Hay House 2012).Leo F. Smyth, Escalation and Mindfulness, _28 Negotiation Journal 45 (Jan. 2012)Symposium, The Mindful Lawyer, Journal of Legal Education, May2012)Articles by Charles Halpern, Angela Harris, Katherine Larkin-Wong, Leonard Riskin,, & David Zlotnick

Other News:The University of California at Berkeley School of Law has announced the formation of the Berkeley Initiative for Mindfulness in Law. Charles Halpern is the Director. http://www.law.berkeley.edu/mindfulness.htm.

Carol Tavris describes dissonance theory and how self-justification and self-deception often keep people from changing their minds even in the light of compelling contrary evidence, because the evidence is often dissonant with one's self-image. She details the implications of dissonance theory for the persistence of psychic charlatans and other peddlers of the paranormal, and how it may explain how someone like Sylvia Brown can live with herself, and also how it may explain how believers remain so gullible about such unsupportable claims. She describes confirmation bias as a component of dissonance theory. She talks about how dissonance theory applies to the skeptic movement, both in terms of suggesting the best strategies for engaging the credulous, and in terms of fostering skepticism about one's own skeptical views. And she argues that skepticism should be affirmative rather than destructive in its approach, and focused on both critical thinking and creative thinking alike.

We have talked much about memory here on this blog and on idealawg because it is such an important component of conflict. Here's what Tavris says in the interview:

Memory is a self-justifying historian. Memory keeps things consonant. If it's a memory of how our parents treated us or how we were in the past ... , the best predictor of our memory is what we believe now, not what really happened then. It's such an enchanting thing. It's why if you are currently feeling good about your mother, you remember how good she was to you as a kid. And if you're really pissed off at your mother, you remember all the bad things. You are keeping the current view consonant.

We know the process by which memories are reconstructed in our brains each time we retrieve them is not like a video camera. They change in the reconstruction, in the remembering. Memory is very malleable and, to a large extent, we're making our past up as we go. Tavris's interview and her book help us to understand the up- and downside of being a "self-justifying historian."

There has never been an international conference dedicated to scientific inquiry into compassion from multiple methodological perspectives. An adaptive pro-social emotion and a virtuous trait broadly condoned across humanistic and spiritual traditions, compassion has only recently gained the attention of science. The Science of Compassion: Origins, Measures and Interventions conference will provide an unprecedented opportunity for expert and aspiring researchers to review theoretical foundations, study approaches, data, and compassion-training approaches, to exchange and debate ideas, and to realize consensus towards conceptually aligned, synergistic approaches to demonstrating empirically how compassion can improve public health.

The Science of Compassion: Origins, Measures and Interventions conference is convening leading scientists from around the world to establish a shared agenda for rigorous scientific inquiry into the psychological properties, biological underpinnings, health correlates, and trainability of compassion.

What's your mindset about conflict? Those conflicts that you may be a party to and those that you work with as a conflict professional? What's your mindset about the role of a mediator? Before you answer those questions, read this good overview article about mindsets and their strong influence.

Our brains never stop learning, never stop changing, never stop growing new connections and pruning unused ones. And they never stop growing stronger in those areas where we reinforce them, like a muscle that keeps strengthening with use (but atrophies with disuse), that can be trained to perform feats of strength we’d never before thought possible—indeed, that we’d never even thought to imagine.

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Not only is intelligence not fixed, but neither are any number of abilities that we may think we either have or don’t have, be they as straightforward-seeming as math skills or as complex as musicality. Walter Mischel and Carol Dweck may have been labeled when young, but at the end, it was their attitude towards those labels and not the labels themselves that ended up determining the course of their lives.